


All Good Things are Wild and Free

by rebel_ren



Series: Drabbles Against Despair [20]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Basically Cat seeing Dot dancing from afar and being instantly smitten, F/F, First Meetings, Sort of 1700s fantasy witch AU?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:27:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23607526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebel_ren/pseuds/rebel_ren
Summary: The Conclave of the East held many interesting and delightful opportunities, but Catarina Loss found herself drawn to a group of dancers on the next hillside, particularly the woman dancing alone in the centre.
Relationships: Catarina Loss/Dorothea "Dot" Rollins
Series: Drabbles Against Despair [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1666300
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	All Good Things are Wild and Free

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a Thoreau quote.
> 
> Prompt from a [tweet](https://twitter.com/gywo/status/1249035038483787777?s=20) from GYWO, which leads to a [tumblr post](https://gywo.tumblr.com/post/615124181535817728/valeria-dienes-madzsar-alice-szentp%C3%A1l-olga). See endnote for photo description.
> 
> I'm not entirely sure where this came from, honestly, but I hope you like it!

Catarina set her belongings on a tree stump and took off her cloak, tilting back her head and breathing in the warm summer night air.

She’d travelled for days to this gathering. Like any convergence of witches, warlocks, and other spellcasters, larger assemblies like the Conclave of the East must be undertaken in strict secrecy. Once the attendees were present, however, and once the sanctity of the communal wards were in place, there were few experiences as liberating as a Conclave.

There were people openly using magic, learning magic, teaching magic, talking about magic. Magic was _everywhere,_ and it was like a balm to Catarina’s heart to be in such an environment.

More mundane needs were not neglected either. The glow of campfires and cookfires dotted the landscape as far as the eye could see. One could follow the smell of roasting meat and baking bread and find a hearty meal to be shared among friends. There were numerous strains of music to be heard, minstrels and songsters playing alone and together, weaving harmonies that the assembled magic-users would carry with them to distant towns and villages.

Catarina wandered for a while, smiling at the sight of little ones playing with magic, making their fingertips spark and conjuring out-of-season flowers for daisy chains, old spells she herself could barely recall learning at her grandmother’s knee.

A little ways away from the rest of the encampment, there was a larger glow. Catarina followed it, drawn by the gorgeous music as well as the movement that caught her eye even in the gathering dusk.

She stopped on the outskirts of the warm firelight, hesitant to do anything to interrupt this sight.

The dancers were beautiful. Some danced together, others alone in their own little worlds.

It refreshed the soul just to see them, the way the music flowed through them just as their magic did. It was not surprising that there was dancing and revelry, for magic-users cherished opportunities to be openly themselves without fear of discovery or reprisal. And, as it was Midsummer’s Eve, this was a night when the connection to the earth and other living things was stronger than most times.

It was breathtaking to see the way the dancers’ luminous auras shifted, colours moving through them like the aurora borealis Catarina had seen a few times.

And then Catarina caught sight of her.

All the dancers were beautiful, but to Catarina, _she_ seemed like the centre of them all. The point around which everyone gravitated.

Catarina was not close enough to see her face, but the dancer’s aura seemed to _glow,_ and she moved as though nothing else mattered but the earth beneath her bare feet, the moon above her head, and the music within her.

As Catarina watched, the dancer seemed to contort, bending over backwards, her pointed toes nearly floating off the ground, and Catarina…

Catarina had always thought herself courageous, uncaring of others’ opinions. She was a witch, after all. A being made of magic. She could always leave, always reinvent herself. She’d done it a hundred times before, and she would do it a hundred times again.

Now, however, Catarina was afraid.

She was afraid of what this dancer made her feel, and of what those feelings might mean. This was something Catarina was entirely unprepared for. She was solitary, self-sufficient.

She’d taken lovers before, as one did, enjoying her time with them, but though a few had tempted her into staying for a second bedding, that had been the extent of it.

Never had Catarina felt so drawn to someone. Never had she felt as though the magic within her was responding to the magic within another. As though, despite the distance between them, she knew without question that touching this woman would feel like embracing lightning.

Though Catarina’s trepidation grew with each passing moment, she was unable to tear her eyes away, and there was a veritable maelstrom within her.

Trepidation battled with desire, with excitement. In the end, it was not either of those things that won out, but rather that most dangerous of emotions: hope.

This was not a woman Catarina could approach merely for a mutually satisfying hour under the stars. There was too much in the dancer that called to Catarina: the grace in her movements, the strength in her limbs. Her aura was wild yet gentle, its colours vibrant and constantly shifting yet somehow never harsh, inviting rather than demanding.

And everything within Catarina responded.

Catarina found herself stepping toward the dancer, wending through the crowd though she could not recall making a decision to do so.

It was slow progress. There were many dancers now, some clasping hands to move together in lines and circles. But now that Catarina had begun, she was determined and would not be dissuaded, merely stepping to the side or ducking slightly as needed in order to be able to continue.

She was slightly out of breath when she reached the centre, and she paused for a moment, taking a deep breath at the sight that greeted her.

The woman in the centre had her eyes closed, and she was swaying. Now that Catarina was near, she could see the woman’s features, and she was even more beautiful like this than Catarina had already felt her to be.

Her lips were curved into a soft smile, and her arms seemed to float through the air.

As Catarina watched, she raised her arms overhead and let her head tilt back, her shining hair like a waterfall, her upturned face lit by the moon and firelight. There was such joy on her countenance, such serenity. She took Catarina’s breath away.

In that moment, she was like magic itself, something indescribable yet so deeply familiar that Catarina could not adequately express it. She was the beauty of starlight, the velvet softness of dusk, the simple pleasure of fertile earth underfoot, and Catarina was undone.

Catarina’s lungs burned, and she took a deep, shaky breath, then another.

There was sufficient surrounding noise that the woman shouldn’t have been able to hear her, surely.

And yet, with one final slow spin, the woman dropped her arms to her sides and opened her eyes, dark as the canopy of sky overhead.

She looked at Catarina, and Catarina looked back.

The dancer smiled, slow and joyous, and stepped forward, her hands lifting to take Catarina’s.

“Oh,” the woman said, her sweet voice warm and full of recognition. “It’s _you_ I’ve been waiting for…”

Catarina smiled. “And it’s you I’ve been missing,” she said, simple and true and full of all the certainty she felt in her dancing, hopeful heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Photo description: A sepia-toned photograph of multiple dancers wearing white/light-coloured dresses. Three of the dancers are visible, the centre one facing the camera and the others framing the centre dancer on the right and left. All the dancers are barefoot and holding hands, each bending backwards. They appear caught up in the moment, not paying the camera any attention. They're standing in grass, the backdrop a cloudy sky. The text underneath the image (from original tumblr poster [rivesveronique](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/rivesveronique)) reads, "Valeria Dienes, Madzsar Alice, Szentpál Olga, Great Etel, dance study 1940, Anonym"


End file.
